I'd been feeling God calling me--no, commanding me--to listen up and be really present, to stop cramming my head so full of fiction and assignments that I can't think. So I got back to journalling, and skipped classes on Tuesday to have a real pause, and stopped reading fiction, and fasted on Wednesday night/Thursday, and went to the Ash Wednesday prayer service, and tried to meditate on the bus today. I can definitely see why I needed to slow down and clear my mind and focus on God this week, because intense conversations have been flying at me from every side. A catalog of conversations:
- On a politicky and tragic family situation, Tuesday night
- On how to face Bible study having become twice the size it needs to be, Tuesday night
- On being a real man by God's definition! also Tuesday night
- On horrifically awkward boy problems, Wednesday night
- On race and class, 9-11, Good and Evil, Heaven and Hell, Thursday afternoon
- On what it means to "need" someone, Wednesday & Thursday evening
- On how the heck to teach people to lead Bible studies, Thursday night
- On dealing with discontentment and immature exes, Friday noon
- On Hosea chapter 5, Friday afternoon
- On how a Christian should address the forest of issues surrounding homosexuality, Saturday afternoon
- On the problem of pain (case study: a sister's cancer), Sunday night
Holy Spirit, come. Holy Spirit, dwell. Fill this place with joy overflowing, and love overflowing, and peace overflowing, in all of your glory: Come. I would have failed at these conversations if I hadn't been consciously listening for God, trying to "feed on Him" since Jesus is the Bread of Life. I would have been at a loss for words; I would have avoided the hard questions and just been the soft listener; I wouldn't even have been able to listen all the way through, to put aside my agenda. And I certainly could have done better even as it was. But by the grace of God, even the offering I could bring bore some fruit.
"The one who feeds on Me will live because of Me": let me feed on You, Lord, because life comes only from You.
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